California Gas Prices Still Out Of Effing Control

Hello from sunny California, now home to two three vaginally-afflicted members of your crack Wonkette cyborg team. It is a fun state, full of many wonderful things like giant trees, Mexican goth teens, and of course, Danny DeVito’s allegedly hyperactive peen. But what else does California have to offer its mixed population of liberal shitstains and Orange County ‘Publicans? Why, the insanest gas prices we’ve ever seen in this here nation!

The rise in California gasoline prices has slowed after recent jarring increases, but nonetheless the cost of a gallon inched up to another record high, even as officials hope their emergency action will help ease the sticker shock.

The average price for regular gas in the state on Tuesday was a bit over $4.67 a gallon, according to the AAA’s Daily Fuel Gauge Report. The price was a state record and the highest in the nation.

The cost increased only a fraction of a cent overnight, however — compared to nearly 50 cents in the past week.

Only un fraction de un centado? Viva la gasolina! (This is a mixed language called “Spangmerican,” which some might call a pidgin and others might call a creole and others might call “what the gardener talks when he sprays the bushes with no mask on, because we are too cheap to buy him protection against lethal carcinogens and as long as our bougainvillea looks purty, all is right with the world.”)

But why, you ask, is the gas price so damn high? After all, the oil industry is so well-regulated and does not contribute to terrible things such as war or ecological destruction ever! Well, the correct answer is “refinery disruptions and corrosion issues” but mostly actually “stupid environmental regulations,” of course.

Also contributing to the high prices, California law, in an effort to reduce air pollution, requires that gas stations during warmer months use a special blend of fuel that is not widely available.

State leaders — and drivers — hope to see gasoline prices drop soon because Gov. Jerry Brown has ordered the California Air Resources Board to allow so-called “winter-blend” gasoline to be sold in California earlier than usual to increase supply.

Like all whiny women, Sen. Babs Boxer (D-Sodom) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Gomorrah) just HAVE to find fault with perfectly sound logic and rationale. They say maybe those refinery issues are just an excuse to drive prices sky-high. Ha ha ha, as if such a thing were possible and in fact probable! Someone please confine these ladies to a room with yellow wallpaper until they expire of feminine problems. Meanwhile, your authoress will be riding around Los Angeles in a wagon pulled by a team of gay oxen, the only kind of pack animals currently available in this gorgeous state.

About the author

Sara Benincasa is an award-winning comedian, writer and radio talk show host. Her outspoken, sexually-charged comedy has won praise from the Chicago Tribune, CNN, The Guardian, and The New York Times, and has earned her an ECNY (Emerging Comedian of New York) Award and a Webby nomination. Her memoir, "Agorafabulous!: Dispatches From My Bedroom," (William Morrow/HarperCollins), was based on her critically acclaimed solo show about panic attacks and agoraphobia. She is currently working on a novel for young adults.

Ever notice that Republicans talk about companies and business owners as if they are either hostage takers or idiots? If we don't give these companies more subsidies, they'll take their jobs overseas! Job creators are so nervous right now, they are too afraid to hire people!

Esteev

It's similar to their framing of Obama as an incompetent, weak, all-powerful super-Mao.

http://simplyleftbehind.blogspot.com/ actor212

… in their pants!

Barbara_

"Winter-blend" gasoline. Who the fuck made that decision? The brew masters at Samuel Adams?

That's been going on for decades, adding butane to gasoline to make it a little less likely to turn to sludgy ice and to bring it up to surrounding atmospheric pressure.

glasspusher

Sam Adams: Brewer, Patriot, Alcoholic.

Don't forget adding propane to butane camp fuel so it will still come out in the winter. Butane boils just north of where ice melts…

tessiee

Dang it, Bobby!

Biel_ze_Bubba

Something I learned the hard way: Just when you really, really need it the most, the damned stove won't work!

jaytingle

Dave Mustaine says it's Obama's fault. And I must say, as a liberal, I have been very disappointed with Obama's performance. To be honest, it sure sounds like Romney's election will fix a bunch of stuff. Like, finally, the US will support Israel. That's sure to make gas prices go down.

BaldarTFlagass

"Like, finally, the US will support Israel."

That worked so well in 1973, let's try again!!!

http://simplyleftbehind.blogspot.com/ actor212

Hey, gas was only a quarter a gallon!

Steverino247

That worked so well because Steverino247 was in a C-141 heading that way in order to impress the Soviets that they should back the fuck off. At least that worked.

BaldarTFlagass

I liked how they were intially trying to be all sneaky and shit but flight delays led to all those C-5s and 141s full of war supplies landing in broad daylight. Whoops.

Steverino247

The 18th Airborne Corps was put on alert and lead elements were on the way. Let's just say I wasn't part of the logistics train, my friend. If the Israeli counter-attack in the Sinai had failed, I would have been in the HOLY SHIT Land, sure enough.

BaldarTFlagass

I though everyone out there drove electric cars. Or Hummers.

jaytingle

I could go for an electric Hummer. If you know what I mean. 'Cause I don't.

Rethuglicans, why are you so suddenly concerned with the Invisible Hand of Teh Market's Imperial Bitch-Slap? Because, Freedom! nicht wahr?

Texan_Bulldog

Drill, baby, drill!

Esteev

Frack, baby, frack!

PubOption

Is the American Dental Association looking for subsidies as well?

freakishlywrong

Gas may be expensive in your lovely state, Sarah!!, but, save for the OC and the inland, at least you're not up to your armpits in wingnuts and zealots.

mavenmaven

The two meth capitols of CA, as well.

kittensdontlie

Although the trees don't sound like they are of the right height.

BerkeleyBear

Add the North Forest Freaks (and I don't mean lefties, more like Deliverance extras) to get a clearer picture. California is really an archipelago of sanity islands from the Bay Area south to aspects of SD surrounded by vast pools of nutbar.

I call bullshit – there were hardly any putdowns of the commenters at all. I am insulted by not being insulted.

freakishlywrong

Today, we are all a team of gay oxen.

http://simplyleftbehind.blogspot.com/ actor212

The yoke's on you. We've ALWAYS been gay oxen

Lascauxcaveman

I blame Obama, naturally. We need Romney in the white house, with his firm hand on the middle east, he will surely bomb those gas prices back down. It's so easy.

How low do you want them America? $2.50/gallon? $1.10 a gallon? It's all a part of Mitt's secret economic plan.

PubOption

If the oil companies drill here, there will no production costs or profits taken, so who knows how low the price will go.

Biel_ze_Bubba

And the oil will stay right here in the USA, and not be sold for the going rate on the global market, because Exxon-Mobil is just so patriotic and everything.

Generation[redacted]

Mitt will build a Keystone XL pipeline through the middle of Haight Ashbury. It won't be buried underground, either, it will be just high enough above the ground so that stoned hippies bonk their heads when they cross the street.

Biel_ze_Bubba

Nothing will improve US energy costs like a pipeline taking Canadian oil to Gulf ports for export. Do Republicans assume that midwesterners will just tap into the pipe, like people do in Nigeria? Because that works out really well.

Willardbot9000_V2.5

The most annoying part of the obnoxious Keystone pipe politics is that according to studies oil and gas will be MORE expensive in the Midwest, also.

Biel_ze_Bubba

But oil companies and their executives will profit. Ergo, GOP support.

http://wonkette.com/ weejee

Obviously the high price of gasoline is the fault of the John Birchers. Fluoridation would have avoided this mess.

Orange County, Orange County, Orange County!!!

Lot_49

Halogen LIBEL!

prommie

Danny DeVito's peen running amok, scaring the livestock and causing traffic jams, thats what I pictured, and it was not what I wanted to see.

Fucking Benincasa! The fuck?

memzilla

Rethuglican House Measure to Repeal $4B in Oil and Gas Subsidies in 7… 6… 5…

"…a team of gay oxen, the only kind of pack animals currently available in this gorgeous state."

BABE THE PERRYWINKLE OX LIBELZ!!!!

UnholyMoses

Oil prices go down, gas prices go up. You can't explain it!

natl_[redacted]_cmdr

Squee! Sara's back! Quick think of something funny to say… um….

I read your book you magnificent bish!

SaraJBenincasa

Thank you!

emmelemm

I read yer book too! I even bought it off the Amazons. It was delightful.

Esteev

Needed moar polka dot bikini.

Lot_49

Even Senatrix DiFei has convened a high tribunal to ascertain whether this outrage is the result of market manipulation by Big Oil. Ha ha, they love Barry!

FakaktaSouth

What til Barry gets his Eastern European Socialist Fascist Communism kicked into high gear and starts making us all trade in our guns to buy petrol in litres for like 10bucks in North American Union pesos. We really do need to save the oil companies from anti-colonialism NOW. Save us Mitt.

(okay yes I was trying to get in all the words I have learned from some Paultarded wingnuts this last decade)

President-elect Mitt "Mitt" Romney is going to have a busy first day in office.

PubOption

But after that all he has to do is rant at the foreigners.

tessiee

Bitch got a dancing horse.

bflrtsplk

Aw buck up California. Up here north of the 49th parallel, we are paying $1.43 a litre, which equals about $5.30 a gallon. Of course, we also got that thar soshulised medsun, which paid the freight for my recent multiple coronary bypass surgery, so there`s that.

ThundercatHo

Ah, the downside to poutine, bummer.

bflrtsplk

Poutine? Pfft! The surgeon said it was too much fois gras… and cigarettes … and tequilla … and cocaine … and …

Doktor Zoom

I was going to congratulate you and wish you well for continued health, but then I realized that you must by lying, since as we all know, everyone in Canada dies before they get life-saving surgery.

bflrtsplk

Actually, I did die, but they sent me back. They said I was getting too “comfortable.“

Schmannnity

When Romney is elected, California will finally have access to "clean coal" cars.

http://www.vinoverve.com Maman

Blah, blah, blah… Chicago's gas prices were like that all freaking summer. Why is it that gas prices are only a concern when the price is high on a coast?

We'll always be Third City/Third Coast, Maman, the Principality of the Ruler of the Free World, but not crazy enough to be written about on Wonkette. Chicago is to the Coasts as the White Sox are to the Cubs!

chicken_thief

Ve got to let ze gardenair geet high on zuh cahzogenians zo I can fock heez vife ze maid while he vorks.

~Ahnuld

dennis1943

I suggest all Americans go to the ER for the installation of a Halpern Lock………so as to cut out the middle-man…………

http://lostintarnation.blogspot.com/ SayItWithWookies

Now if we had had 10-20,000 troops still sitting around in Iraq getting blown up by IEDs a couple of times a week, this wouldn't be happening. Because oil fears Mitt Romney, and all President Obama's ever done is to apologize to oil. That and a tax cut and we'll be taken care of lickety-split.

tessiee

I hear that Iran has been "put on notice" by Mitzi.

emmelemm

Oooh, Mitzi. I like it.

GunToting[Redacted]

Oh California… I do love you so, but you are so fucking insane/bipolar. Screamingly fabulous/liberal on the coast, but driven by troglodytic ideologues in the Inland Empire and the OC. You show the world your liberal face, but your politics are so insane (Prop 13 anyone) and even though you show much potential, you just can't get out of your own way.

Hey, at least the beaches are pretty covered in raw sewage.

UnholyMoses

The lack of refining capacity (the true problem with gas prices) isn't an accident.

Then, over the course of two decades [80s and 90s], half of the plants shut down. In 2001, Oregon senator Ron Wyden presented to Congress a report arguing that these closings were calculated choices intended to increase oil company profits. Fewer refineries means less product in circulation, which means a lower supply-to-demand ratio and more profit. Wyden's report cites internal memos from the oil industry implying that this reduction was a deliberate attempt to curtail profit losses.

Without something other than gas to power our cars/transportation, we're kinda fucked.

Lascauxcaveman

Cheer up, high gas prices are the primary driver in making cars more efficient and developing alternative, greener technology. Do you think we'd have a Chevy Volt, Nissan Leaf, or Tesla if gas was $1.50 a gallon?

Hell, we wouldn't even have a Prius. We'd just more SUVs and more greenhouse gasses. No one seems to pay attention the the real cost of using cheap, dirty fuels.

Speaking long-term, it's objectively a good thing that they're getting more expensive.

UnholyMoses

Oh, I don't disagree even a little bit.

I live entirely too close to the old Sugar Creek refinery (read: anywhere within about 20 miles of it). Short version: Amoco poisoned the soil, ground water, and part of the Missouri river, resulting in large lawsuit and the place becoming a Superfund site.

So, yeah — fewer refineries are fine by me.

bikerlaureate

But regulation is bad.
I kept hearing that – except during the debate…

http://simplyleftbehind.blogspot.com/ actor212

I think the politically correct phrasing is "vaginally enhanced" not "afflicted"

SaraJBenincasa

My menstrual flow says otherwise.

http://simplyleftbehind.blogspot.com/ actor212

I'd still do ya. For me, it's a feature, not a bug and I hear it's great cramp relief.

delaney_blom

I'm confused . . .is it that the writers are afflicted by having vaginas or that their vaginas are afflicted?

Now, if they want to enhance them, I understand this is popular with the youth (ie, strippers) of today.

http://simplyleftbehind.blogspot.com/ actor212

If I'm reading this right, it's an affliction having an afflicted vagina.

I'll see that and raise it a swollen prostate.

James Michael Curley

If gay oxen are the only pack animals I guess somebody et Reagan's 20 Mule Team.

Monsieur_Grumpe

Can’t we just harpoon a few whales and squeeze some oil out of them? Where does Limbaugh live anyway?

Companies charging obscene prices for gas in LA?
Reminds one of the joke, "why do dogs lick their genitals? Because they can…"

glasspusher

The gas station in my neighborhood in Oakland had plus for $5.05 a gallon this weekend. Ten bucks a gallon! Bring it on! If you value something so cheaply that you'll burn it the first chance you get, ur doin it rong. We're still cavemen, burning stuff to get by.

Gas prices here in KY, a no contest state, are at $3.50 average. I call bullshit.

TavariousChinaSmith

See, this is why whiney liberals who constantly threaten to move to Canada rarely do so. (Because our gas is even more expensive than in California, you see. Also, cry me a river.)

DahBoner

See also: Frozen.

el_donaldo

Somehow I visual Danny DeVito's peen as being kind of like the knot at the end of a balloon.

SaraJBenincasa

WORST.

tessiee

I try not to visualize Danny DeVito's peen at all, and I've succeeded throughout my entire life…
UNTIL NOW.

ThundercatHo

Turn those gay oxen into carne asada (or over to the PETA people) and get yourself a nice white horsey and a long blonde wig.

DahBoner

The only thing the existance of Goths in California proves is that some people can never be happy…

http://inappropriatejobpostings.blogspot.com/ fuflans

while i have a total girl crush on every one of you ladies, i think we might should change this to the 'LA gossip'. i mean, boehner's thrown back three cocktails by the time you all get out of bed – and that's if you're up early.

http://s841.photobucket.com/albums/zz333/Extemporanus/ Extemporanus

Sara, can you hear me?

SaraJBenincasa

I CAN!

Generation[redacted]

What? You mean to tell me that we're STILL using gasoline? Come on people, it's the 21st century already!

Highest in the nation my sweet ass! We've been paying $5.90 since last May and that was up from the previous price of $5.65/gal.. Fuck you California whiners with all your "sunshine" and "warmth". Suck it up.

lulzmonger

Yeah, I'm sure these overinflated prices have nothing to do with Big Oil building zero new refineries in the past several decades … or oil companies scamming the hell out of state wonks (unpossible!) … or their knowing that Cali NORPs would rather eat their own young than be caught dead walking from A to B.